Leumas12's (big) little bronco build

[leumas12]

Hey everybody! I started this build a while ago and I just decided to post it up here. It was posted on a few other sites so if some things say today or or seem out of order or don’t quite make sense, that’s why. Anyway it’s a super low-budget trail rig/rock crawler starting with a 1988 Bronco II that I picked up for $700. Its going to have 39.5” Iroks on DIY beadlocks, Dana 60/14 bolt, and a one link front and rear. Heres what ive been up to:







its ugly as hell so i wont feel at all bad smashing it into rocks and trees.

The Dodge D60 front. Went Dodge front cuz of one thing: It was CHEAP! I picked it up for $400 from a buddy of mine. I know a RC ford 60 would be the best but im on a super tight budget for this build, plus its easier with drivers side drop cuz I wont have to try and fit a flipped d300. (Pics below for that)









Im gonna be using drive flanges and upgrading to 35 spline outers.

[leumas12]

And now here’s my doubler. Its a Borg-Warner 1350/Dana 300 doubler. Now aside from the cost of the cases, this doubler cost me a grand total of about $100. It can do 1:1, 2.48:1 (BW low), 2.62:1 (D300 low), and 6.5:1 (double low). Here it is:



From left to right its the Dana 300 (modified for FWD ability), 6061-t6 aluminum spacer above that to the right is the custom intermediate shaft which i'll get to later. Next is the adapter plate. Its 1/2" 1018 steel which was free from my uncle's machine shop. Drilled and countersunk to the Dana 300 mounting holes and then drilled and tapped to the BW bolt holes.



This is the spacer set on the Dana 300. You can also see that its got a little fitting on the top of this case with a vacuum cap. This way i can fill it from the cab rather than struggling with it on my back (anyone try to fill the NP203 with a funnel? It’s a pain!)



This is the other side of the Dana 300. There are a few cool things here. First, theres an oil level sight tube thats made from 2 push-to-connect fittings and some clear nylon tube. I got the idea from http://www.4x4wire.com/tech/dana300/. This is another thing that i know the 203-runners can appreciate because checking the fluid in that was a huge pain. Now i can check my oil with a quick glance under the truck. If you look at the top of the rear output shaft you can see a little red ring. This is another push-to-connect fitting that i put in place of the stock vent tube.



This is the custom intermediate shaft. Im not going to be running this on though, me and my dad are going to machine one from 4140 and then it will be heat treated and cryo'd





The shaft splines into each transfer case.



Heres the BW after being split and getting the band saw treatment. You can see in the picture of the BW and shaft that i JB welded a 1/2" piece of aluminum to fill the gap created by cutting the case.



Heres the BW again. You can see another oil sight tube running along the side. Also, i added a bolt hole in the bottom right of the case to hold down that corner. This turned out to be perfect for a drain plug too.



One more BW detail. Once again theres a filler tube. The other part is a T push-to-connect fitting that is the top end for the oil level sight tube as well as a vent tube. The stock vent tube was too low to allow enough fluid because of the cut case so i figured this is a nice clean way to solve the problem.

[leumas12]

Here’s my Solidworks model and rendering of the bumper im going to build for this thing. 41” wide, about 80lbs before welding:





It also should be pretty cheap, with the plate and tubing i think it will be somewhere around $100 but im not sure.

My dad and I machined the stock inners for full circle clips. Its just way easier to deal with them rather than the little stock clips.

Before:


And here is the setup we used to mill out the ears:


Cutting em down:


And after the machining:


I gusseted the ears on the ens to get rid of the sharp corner. Hopefully that will help them survive longer!

[leumas12]

The kingpins are out! It was definitely not and easy job. Heres my first attempt at breaking these things loose:







That’s a hardened 4140 7/8” hex bar cut down and slipped into a 7/8” impact socket. I put it on the breaker bar with some tubing and a stake for extra leverage. BTW my axle was laying on the ground, diff cover down, so I could get a lot of leverage. Anyway I heated up the C pretty good, leaned on it as hard as I could and SNAP! The kingpin snapped the breaker bar at the ½” drive without even budging. So after a trip to sears to get a new breaker bar (craftsman has free replacement), I decided to order the right tool for the job. Logged onto McMaster-Carr (my new favorite shopping site) and ordered this puppy:



For some scale, that’s my 4” angle grinder sitting next to it. This thing was a monster! Only $21 from them, $5 shipping and if I order in the morning/early afternoon, stuff gets to me next day. Anyway, fit the monster Allen in some tubing and then topped in off with stake again:



I think it was about 5 feet long, here it is in the kingpin (once again, this pic is just to show what it looked like, I actually had the axle diff cover in the dirt when trying this)





Anyway, I decided to enlist my dads help since the first time it didn’t budge. I heated it up quite a bit this time and with my dad and me leaning on it, it finally broke loose. It made quite a pop when it broke free, I thought we broke the allen key. Anyway once it broke loose I stuck my Dewalt cordless impact driver (which is awesome) and got it out.

Now it was time for the other side! This was a little more awkward. The first time, the extension was going back over the top of the axle so when we leaned on it, the axle stayed in place (like this, with the bottom line being the axle __\.). This time, the extension was coming off the axle (like this \___). So my dad stuck around for me to help some more.

We got the extension all set up so that it was horizontal enough to stand on. I heated it up, my dad stood on the other side of the axle as a counterweight, and I stood on the extension. I bounced on it a few times and it didn’t do a thing. Keep in mind, im 6’7” and 230 pounds, my dad is 6’9” and about the same weight. So, I was standing on a 5’ extension at 230lbs and the kingpin didn’t move! If my math is right, means that over 1000lb/ft couldn’t break it loose! SO we decided to try again. I heated the C up even hotter (but being careful not to distort it) and this time I stood on the axle with my big tool chest (another 60lbs or so) and my dad got on the extension. Didn’t go at first but after a few good bounces it broke free. Impact driver again and they were out! Here’s the evidence of my victory!:

[leumas12]

So after that adventure I took a break and decided to finish the job on the axle. I rotated it back to normal to get to the diff cover, popped it off and went for the carrier. The cordless impact driver made short work of the bearing caps in the diff. Then I got out the big prybar and popped out the carrier. Im going to weld it up but im running hydro assist or full hydro so it wont be a problem. A locker is too expensive for now (though I do see an OX locker in this thing someday…).

Heres the bare housing! Axle is now completely torn down except for the pinion:



And heres something I found and didn’t like. The normal axle vent is this fitting with a little crimped cover over it. Lets it breathe, but certainly doesn’t keep debris/water out of the diff:



So that thing will be coming off and replaced with one of the 90* tube fittings that I used on the transfer cases. It will vent with the cases, probably to somewhere in the cab. I will be figuring all that out soon.

I got the axle pressure washed (hub/brake assembly and the housing) and the inside of the tubes cleaned out. Heres how I cleaned out the inside of the tubes. The inside diameter of the housing is 2.125” so I cut out some sheet metal with a radius of about 2” and welded it to some threaded rod I had laying around. Heres what it looks like:



The sheetmetal warped a little from the welding but it didn’t matter. This actually worked better than I could have ever expected. I welded it on and took it straight to the axle and started scraping. Since the sheet metal was so hot from welding, the grease and dirt just melted off the tube and came right out. Heres some of what came out:



And heres about half of the amount of crap that came out. I’d guess I got about a pound and a half of dirt and grease out of the tubes.

[leumas12]

And during all of this cleaning, I also juggled my other task. I welded up the spider gears for the front axle. I plan on getting an OX locker for this project eventually, but the Lincoln locker will do just fine for the time being, especially since its free. Here’s how I did it:

Started with 2 pieces of .25” plate. I think its 2.25”x1.5”. Heres the plate:









Once its tacked in, I started filling it in. When there was a big gap between teeth on the gears (it the corners between the spider gears and side gears) I put one of these little slugs. Its 1/4” diameter rod cut to about ½” long.



Took about 8 hours to weld up the whole thing because I welded it then let it cool so that I wouldn’t warp the carrier or overheat and damage the bearings. However, since I was pressure washing the axle as well, I let it cool while I sprayed it and did other stuff. After all that, heres what I ended up with:



Im going to have to clean it up quite a bit. I know there is alot of spatter, I needed clean better between welds but I don’t think they are weak by any means. Im gonna have to wire wheel it and get all the slag out of there, wouldn’t want them to destroy my r&p.

[leumas12]

Finally got paid, so we are rollin again :smokin:

Got to the scrap yard on saturday and picked up a few things. I got a piece of 1'x2'x.25" thick plate. Also, i decided to take the advice of everyone that has seen the truss and i got some beefier stuff for it. I picked up two 1.5' pieces of 2"x3"x.25" wall tube (those with the piece of plate were only $30 total) and rebuilt the truss. I didnt snap any pics of it welded because my camera is acting up. The camera was free from my girlfriends parents so not really a big loss if it craps out. Anyway, here are the last pics i managed to take:





Also painted the outer ring of the beadlocks. Once i get some valve stems in em i can mount the tires. Heres the wheel, doesnt show well but its olive drab green:



Thats it. Will try and get some more pictures up soon of the welded truss. After that comes notching the truss to fit the axle and welding that up. Then the axle will be rebuilt. Thanks for lookin

Sam

[leumas12]

Well the truss is tacked in to place. Its all ready to finish weld in but some stuff came up today so i couldnt finish it. Heres how it stands now:



Clearance for the square tube that will bolt up like leaf springs:


Also got the plate that will bolt up with the differential cover drilled and welded in with innershield wire:







Flush with the diff cover mounting surface :smokin::


And heres a few pics of the crappy welds (first one is worst of all the joints) on the truss just for kicks and critique. These were done with solid wire and gas, 3 passes at each joint:







Hopefully i can get the truss welded in tomorrow. Going out of town for labor day so probably wont get much work done on it after that. I have the material for the steering arms (3"x1" 1018) as well as the intermediate shaft (2.5" dia. 4130) for the doubler coming tomorrow. The machining of those will have to wait until next week sometime. Thanks for checking it out

Sam

[leumas12]

Here are the pics of the welded in truss. I know the welds look like crap but they are strong. I beveled the ends of the truss so i have full penetration all the way through the truss. Anyway, here are the pics:







No progress will be made this weekend, heading to NV to see the grandparents. Thanks guys!

Sam

[leumas12]

Ive gotten a few things done. I made my high-steer arms. They aren’t pretty (obviously ) but they will do the job. Here they are before paint:



The hard part was the 2” hole for the kingpin spring. After about an hour of trying to do it with the hole saw and mill (and only getting ¼” into the part) I got impatient and tried pushing a little harder. Didn’t work out to well, ended up snapping a bunch of teeth off the saw when it grabbed. After that my dad threw it on the CNC lathe and put a perfect hole in it for me in about 2 minutes.

Got the axle rebuilt after that. Heres what it looks like now:





And heres how I gusseted the axle ears. It was hard to get a good picture, came out kind of funny but this is it:



The axle still need a diff cover, brakes, hubs, tie rod, and ram mounted. I figure once I get the tie rod on I will wheel it in place under the truck because once I install the hubs the tires are going to be 100% locked.

In order to make wheeling that axle under easy, as well as making the removal of the old one easy, I decided to cut the fenders. The fenders on this truck were already trashed and I figure they will just get in the way so I took em off. After that I decided to get the core support out of the way as well. I cut the bottom corners off then “massaged” the rest of it up until I had a good curve to give a lot of space to the new 39.5” IROKS. Here’s what the new “fenders” look like:



I will probably weld some angle iron it to give the core support some of its rigidity back, but overall I think it worked out well for being just an angle grinder and sledgehammer job. I still need to do the other fender as well as some final trimming, I will post pictures of the whole frontend when I do so that you can see what this thing will look like.

Next will be taking out the front suspension and putting the new front in place, as well as diving into the 14 bolt a little bit (welded diff, truss, and disc brakes). Thanks guys.

Sam

[leumas12]

I turned the steering arms around. I figure that since Im running full hydraulic steering I might as well make the ram as protected and out of the way as possible. Heres what they look like now.



Also, I went a different route for the ram. Scored a 2.25” bore 1.5” rod 8” stroke double ended cylinder for $26 (NOT a typo)! 2.5” bore would have been better but for the price its hard to argue. The position of the ports also isn’t ideal, but again you cant beat it for the price.





And looking through the thread I realized I never posted a picture of the tires for this thing. They’ve been sitting in the back of the truck almost since I got it. Heres one approximately where it will be sitting on the truck (after front axle is moved forward about 12”)



That’s all ive got for now. The 14 bolt is torn down but its nothing exciting so I left out pics of that. Im also in the process of cutting the rear fenders out so I can slide out the rear axle and get the new one in place. Thanks everybody.

Sam

[leumas12]

Got the rear fenders cut today. Heres what they look like now:







Im gonna use some sheetmetal and thin angle iron to make new wheel wells.

Took some measurements and it looks like i am going to need to build 6" of lift into the new suspension. Add that to the 7" gained by the tires (from 25.5" to 39.5") and it looks like it will be around 24" to the bottom of the frame rails while the roof of the rig will be about 7' high. Not too low, not too tall.

Sam

[leumas12]

I got differential covers

[leumas12]

And that's all. Broncoii4x4.com is now up to date with my build Well i better get moving, i want to get this thing done and wheeling!!! Thanks for checking it out guys.

Sam

[clem]

WOW!!! nice job, you have no idea how lucky you are not to deal with heavy rust issues.